How one great beer has driven the rise and rise of Thornbridge
THORNBRIDGE’S flagship beer, the renowned Jaipur, is better known nationally than the company who produce it, the brewery’s tour guide informed us. When questioned, he added that many people who are not from “round here” had heard of the beer but could not name who brewed it.
I suppose we should not be surprised. Jaipur has taken on a life of its own in the 16 years since it was first brewed and it is no exaggeration to say that it has made the company.
Forty per cent of Thornbridge’s production puts Jaipur into casks, kegs, bottles and cans for markets all over the world.
Having touched on Jaipur and the brewery when reviewing Matthew Curtis’s book Modern British Beer a few weeks ago, I decided to try out the brewery’s “Thornbridge Experience” and booked into it as a birthday present for my eldest daughter, Sharon, who’s a huge fan of Jaipur.
I’ll be going back next month, because my youngest, Molly, also a fan, declared “that’s my birthday present, too, Dad!” It’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it.
If you’ve never been to Thornbridge’s brewery on the outskirts of Bakewell, or if it’s a while since you have, I recommend it. They moved there from Thornbridge Hall, near Great Longstone, in 2009.
Each time I drop by, there are clues to the continued growth of the company at the Riverside business centre. Each time, they seem to have taken on another unit, crammed with product.
They used lockdown to sort the visitor experience out properly. Now there is a splendid taproom, minimalist but with enough paraphernalia added to make you forget that you’re sitting in a relatively modern steel-framed industrial unit. A neon sign tells you you’re in “the home of Jaipur.”
It has a shop, a bar, a range of seating and there are pizzas. There’s also a freezer full of meat from the Thornbridge estate and a range of merchandise, although I’d suggest one next step might be to get some more stock sorted, because unless you’re “small” the Jaipur t-shirt on display is there only to tease you.
It’s a minor quibble. There’s a nice feel to the place and the staff are cheery and welcoming. The place feels complete, as a visitor experience, now that they have moved the original brewing kit down from the hall, where it had initially stayed in use for smallerrun beers.
It is still in full use and now produces all of the company’s cask beer. I suppose it is a sign of the times that the vastly bigger brewery adjacent produces everything else Thornbridge sell but you could liken it to many Scottish distilleries, I suppose.
A large percentage of what the average independent distillery produces is sold to big companies to produce bogstandard blended whisky. Doing so funds the good stuff, the single malts.
In the same way, if selling bottles and cans all over the world enables Thornbridge to keep making great beers available in cask, then so be it. My prejudice against canned beer is deep-seated. Can technology has moved on enormously. Beer in cans used to be notably metallic and, therefore, horrible. I was assured by the tour guide that modern cans have a coating inside which keeps the liquid from actually touching the metal.
I did bring home a couple of cans of Jaipur. It didn’t taste metallic but neither did it taste as fresh and gorgeous as a properly matured Jaipur from a cask does.
Anyway, what do you get from the “Thornbridge Experience?” Well, the company make it clear on their website that this is not the sort of tour in which you are shown around the brewery to peer into fermenting vessels and the like. You pay £15.
They take in only 12 people per sitting (there are two each day) and that is a nicely manageable number.
You are shown a very professional video skimming through the roots of the company, usefully subtitled, since the noise of casks and kegs being moved around the brewery is somewhat intrusive.
While a Q&A had been described as a part of the experience, it was all nicely informal and our guide was happy to digress at any point if people had a question.
The tastings involve six thirds, three of them keg beers, three of them cask. Then you get a handsome Jaipur pint glass and a discount voucher for the shop.
I felt it was all decent value.
I asked just how far Thornbridge saw themselves going. They have come a long way in 16 years and they were able to fund launching and giving the business a foothold not least because founder Jim Harrison and his wife Emma, the owners of Thornbridge Hall, were already very wealthy.
The answer is that there is no specific plan for growth.
One of Thornbridge’s original young head brewers, Martin Dickie, left to form Brewdog, which has far outstripped Thornbridge in terms of growth but, by the same token, Thornbridge, who now have six pubs in the Sheffield area and collaborations in several more, have far outstripped most small breweries.
Unlike Brewdog, whose crass pronouncements on the world and business practices have made them enemies, as if they need to care, Thornbridge have got where they are so far without, it seems to me, becoming victims of envy or resentment. They have grown organically and appear set on continuing to do so.
There will be a decision to be made, as they approach capacity at the Riverside, and where they go from there will be interesting.
For now, though, they are a Derbyshire success story to celebrate.
To try Thornbridge beers regularly in the county, try the Holly Bush at Makeney, the Spread Eagle at Etwall or the Pack Horse, Little Longstone.
The taproom is minimalist but with enough paraphernalia added to make you forget you are in a modern steelframed industrial unit